Tell me a story

It’s Thomas’s birthday. His parents have given them their minivan as a present, and they’re leaving him the house for the weekend. Mom has misgivings about the latter, but Dad doesn’t because, to paraphrase him, Tom (played by Thomas Mann) is a loser. They expect he’ll have some friends over, but it’s not a big deal because he only has two friends: loud, abrasive Costa (played by Oliver Cooper) and simple, good-natured J.B. (played by Jonathan Daniel Brown). Mom and Dad have no idea that Costa has planned the party of all parties. Tom is barely aware of the magnitude Costa has in mind. He just knows that this party is meant to be a game-changer, a farewell to their high school loserdom.

Project X starts the morning of the party and ends roughly 24 hours later. Most of the movie is the party itself. I tend to like movies that take place over the course of one night: The Sitter, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, The Trojan War all come to mind. The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off were two of my all time favorite movies growing up. I never connected the fact that they both took place over the course of a day, but it’s clear to me now that the time span was a definite part of their appeal.

There’s something so exciting about movies compressed into such a small time frame. Maybe it’s that they exist so much in the moment. They’re not overly focused on what came before or what’ll happen after. And in the more adventurous of these movies, like The Sitter and Ferris, the characters have to deal with an increasingly dramatic (and sometimes hilarious) series of problems, which gives the films a sense of urgency, gives them momentum. This also creates suspense regarding the ending, because how is everything possibly going to get resolved? What will the repercussions be? How will it change their lives? It may be a short period of time, but usually the characters’ lives are changed in a significant way because of that one day or that one night. And what a life-changing night the boys in Project X have..

A very wasted Costa, Tom, and J.B.

Tom and Costa salute the enormous crowd

Since the movie is about a party, a good amount of time is dedicated to simply watching kids dancing, getting drunk, getting high, getting less clothed, and breaking things. If it feels excessive, it’s also engrossing. By the end, you feel like you yourself have been at the party for hours. It bordered on becoming tiring and repetitive, but as the night progresses the situation starts to get so out of hand that you’re wondering how Tom and Costa are not only going to fix everything before Tom’s parents get back, but simply get everyone to leave. And then, before you know it, there’s a car in the pool! How the hell are they going to fix that?

Without giving away the ending, I will say that I was a bit let down by the movie’s resolution. The movie praises reckless and irresponsible behavior more than I’d like (though I should have expected that since the trailer openly describes the movie as a “celebration of bad behavior.”) This is not to say that I want filmmakers to have to worry about instilling morality in their art. That’s one of the great things about movies: you can vicariously experience  things you would never do in real life, things you may disagree with, maybe even things you don’t want to admit you’re curious about.

That’s why, even though I’m wishing Tom would get the party under control and the house fixed up before his parents get home, I’m also wanting him to push it as far as he can. His situation reminds me of that excitement you get when stretching a rubber band. You know it’ll snap if you stretch too hard, and it’ll possibly hurt you, but the fun is pushing it as far as it will go without breaking it. It’s like speeding on the highway; part of the thrill is wondering how fast you can go without crashing or getting pulled over. I’m no daredevil (I’m too afraid to be), but the thought of pushing limits excites me. That’s why I enjoyed seeing the party get so chaotic.

J.B., Tom, and Costa

Now, I can’t end the review without talking about Costa. He’s not the center of the movie, but he steals it. He’s the reason there’s even a movie, as he’s engineered this entire party. He’s this obnoxious, inconsiderate, crass, funny and somewhat entertaining person, almost like a real life Eric Cartmen except not as endearing. He made me laugh, but he’s the type of person I’d never want to spend time with. I don’t see why Tom and J.B. are friends with him, but for the sake of the movie, it’s a good thing they are.

The last thing I’ll say about the movie is that there’s an incredibly funny part involving a little person, which is almost worth the price of admission itself.

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Now as an aside, I’d like to point out the great effect music can have on a movie trailer. I’d never heard of Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness,” but after seeing the trailer, the song was embedded in my brain. I’ve listened to it at least 25 times since then and have played it multiple times alone while writing this. It definitely affected my desire to see the movie if only on a subconscious level. The last time a trailer’s song worked on me this well was with Scala & Kolacny Brothers’ cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” for The Social Network.

You can hear a bit of “Pursuit of Happiness” in the trailer below, as well as the whole song in Kid Cudi’s music video below it.

Project X
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Writers: Matt Drake and Michael Bacall (Manic, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21 Jump Street)

Kid Cudi – “Pursuit of Happiness”

As a bonus, I’m also including an interview that Gofobo (the site that makes all my advance screenings possible) did with the three stars of the film: Gofobo Interview: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, & Jonathan Daniel Brown of Project X